Senior Operational Leader - Ilkeston

Are you looking for a new challenge? Do you have leadership experience, great communication skills, and enjoy coaching others? Do you have an accreditation in Criminal or Financial Investigations?

Then DWP may be the place for you. This is an exciting opportunity to join our Counter Fraud and Compliance Directorate (CFCD) on a team committed to tackling fraud encountered through our Economic, Serious and Organised Crime (ESOC) team. You will be at the forefront of tackling serious and organised crimes against DWP which often has links into wider criminality of modern slavery, human trafficking, and identity fraud. You will work with senior leaders across multi law enforcement agencies on high profile and serious fraud operations involving many suspects in multi-million-pound criminality.

As Senior Operational Leader, you will role model excellent senior management leadership, overseeing investigations into either criminal or financial teams, taking responsibility for the flexible, effective, personalised delivery of customer service, quality, and performance . You will provide transformational leadership to the site and beyond - leading through others, driving people engagement, and inspiring colleagues to deliver objectives.

CFCD is a great place to work where the leadership team are passionate about attracting the best talent whilst nurturing and valuing new and existing colleagues to be the best they can be. We are looking for people who can demonstrate our values and commitment to leadership which are based around collaboration, resilience, and inclusivity. We look for emotionally aware leaders who enable teams to be innovative, adaptable, and flexible . We want you to be comfortable challenging the norm and finding daring and dynamic solutions that support our values and enable colleagues to shine in whatever role they do.

As a Senior Operational Leader, you can expect to be involved in a range of the following:

• Report directly to the Grade 7 , being fully accountable for the leadership of a large, geographically diverse team of Criminal or Financial Investigators, setting strategic business priorities for your areas of responsibility and driving performance against key objectives.
• Be a self-starter, able to use your own initiative and make sound, complex decisions at pace.
• Lead performance within your business area, undertaking regular face-to-face performance reviews with your direct reports, identifying risks to performance achievement, and driving forward continuous improvement.
• Have experience and knowledge of leading diverse teams in an investigation's environment, through effective coaching and mentoring, to improve service delivery.
• Work alongside multiple, senior representatives from other government departments/external bodies, building strong, collaborative relationships which enhance our reputation and achieve excellent outcomes.
• P rovide visible, effective leadership through regu lar site visits, taking a personal lead in engaging with and communicating key messages with clarity and passion to obtain buy in.
• Motivate teams to operate fle xibly, seeking feedback, listening, and acting on this, setting performance standards.
• Encourage creative thinking and collaborative working between teams and directorates to drive innovation and service improvements.
• Contribute to people planning activities, ensuring appropriate and effective deployment of people and resources within and between sites.
• Ensure all matters are dealt with promptly and sensitively , in line with DWP policies and procedures, and legislative frameworks, managing risk exposure by overseeing compliance.

There will be occasional travel and overnight stays.

What we are looking for in our Senior Operational Leaders:

• Highly developed people management skills, with experience of leading diverse and inclusive teams to achieve criminal or financial investigation outcomes. Demonstrating how you set clear strategic directions and drive performance improvement through proactive leadership, confident to challenge and effectively monitor performance. Embedding an inclusive coaching working environment where people feel valued. (Lead Criteria)

• An ability to work at pace in a changing environment. Make sound strategic business decisions based on complex data, considering national business priorities. Act promptly to reassess workloads and resource when there are conflicting demands to maintain performance. Detail how you deployed resource to achieve successful delivery of an investigation to required quality and timescales. (2nd Lead Criteria)

• A strong record of building and maintaining professional capability for yourself and others. Demonstrate an ability to develop a coaching culture to support colleagues to achieve and maintain continuous professional development. Build capability to future proof service delivery, ensuring people have the right skills to overcome challenges and deliver quality business outcomes.

• Use sound analytical skills, effectively interpret and use a range of data including management information to deliver against performance objectives while maintaining quality. Demonstrate how you have engaged with stakeholders, to consider different options, risks and business impact. Articulate and justify difficult or unpopular decisions consulting others where appropriate to ensure the right level of decision-making.

Essential Security Criteria

Please note that the role that you are applying requires National Security Vetting (NSV) to the level Security Check (SC) You can find more information at United Kingdom Security Vetting: Applicant - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) . If you are successful in your application, you will need to attain SC clearance before you can take up post.  This is mandatory and is in addition to completion of Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS).

The purpose of the NSV process is to provide a level of assurance about an individuals trustworthiness, integrity and reliability, and other factors that increase their vulnerability to corruption or risk of committing a security breach. It involves the investigation of an individuals background and circumstances to achieve this aim.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Candidates are required to meet the UK residency requirements so that National Security Vetting (NSV) checks can be conducted. Depending on the level of NSV required, you must have resided continuously in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years, 2 of which must have been the immediately preceding years from the point of applying for this job.

The application process will ask for personal details about you, your address history, previous relationships, your parents, your employment history, your financial circumstances, and details of any pending, spent or unspent convictions.  This list is not exhaustive.  Please view the Vetting explained - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.

If you require any further information, please contact the vacancy holder the details are on the jobs portal through which you made your application.

If you are successful in your application, we recommend that you familiarise yourself with the NSV process and advise that you collate as much information as you can prior to starting your Vetting application.

If you go on to attain Security Clearance, then you should be aware of the following:

Behaviours expected of you to maintain clearance

Keeping your clearance is dependent upon maintaining good security behaviours. You must:

• Not take any illegal drugs.

• Always act with honesty and integrity and, if you are a Civil Servant, adhere to the Civil Service Code.

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